ETERNAUT

Puerta Galera

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On June 16 the required weather window had finally arrived. We planned two days for the crossing from Subic Bay on Luzon to Puerto Galera on Mindoro.

A departure clearance had to be requested from Subic Bay port control. A hassle for the sailor. We asked the friendly staff from Subic Bay Yacht Club to help us with the paperwork. Of course we had to pay for that service but we needed the time to do last minute shopping before venturing off.

We would have liked to spend the night in Punta Fuego. But unfortunately the small marina did not respond to our emails and phone calls remained unanswered.

There were not many sailors left in Subic Bay because it was the beginning of rainy season. But those who were available helped with good advice on where to anchor for the night en route to Puerto Galera should Punta Fuego Yacht Club not be available. Thank you Helmut and Brian 🙂

Day 1: Subic Bay to Maya Maya

A known issue

Day one started free of any worries: A long swell from the south-west rolled in. But this was absolutely tolerable so we did not need to deploy the Paravanes for stabilization.

Everything went fine for a few hours. We had almost reached the opposite site of Manila Bay when I heard a slight decrease in engine RPM. It lasted just a brief moment. When I glanced at the rev counter everything was back to normal again: 1,000RPM. Just a short time later it happened again: The engine sounded like it was working harder – or not getting enough fuel. With this slow rotating Gardner 6LXB a trained ear works better than the revolution display – at least if you grew up with such ‘old’ technology. Whether Toyota Corolla, VW Jetta, Opel Astra, BMW 1.7TDS, various small trucks – I had driven many older diesel vehicles with manual transmissions. And trust me: even a high volume torque friendly Diesel engine does not like to work too hard.

Fuel – Air – Torque

Big advantage of this style of old fashioned Diesel engine is: there isn’t much which can make it stop working

Air

The simplest item to be fixed on this boat with this engine: there is no air filter installed. Thus i can exclude the problem of air starvation immediately.

Torque

As mentioned above even the high-torque diesel engines do not like to work too hard. A fishnet in the propeller could cause engine RPM to drop. We shifted into reverse gear and tried to loosen any net from the propeller.

Fuel

As air starvation as well as over torquing seemed not the problem of the engine working harder there was only one problem left to follow up: fuel starvation!

But fuel starvation due to a clogged filter or hose? Very very unlikely:

I had cleaned tanks and fuel using the fuel purifier extensively. Additionally: before any diesel enters the 1,200 liter day tank it passes through two filters with a water separator. Then there are two large double filters (Double-Double Fleetguard SMX Fuel Filtration) which I operate in alternately to prevent the diesel becoming old in the filters.

And I had changed all fuel filters less than six months ago (about 200 operating hours). It was therefore very unlikely that a filter had become clogged.

But before the diesel enters the engine it passes through the Veritas AIC-904 fuel counter: And I had problems with fuel counter before.

Fuel counter

It required several visits to the engine room before I finally managed to find the culprit: the fuel counter must have been clogged (once again!).

The lack of fuel and resulting decrease in engine RPM was only of very brief moments. So I required a lucky moment to witness the spike in fuel suction on the recently installed gauge.

This was not the first time we encountered the problem with a clogged fuel counter: it happened before in Discovery Bay after the exhaust had been repaired. Luckily I had installed valves to bypass this device. Now we don’t have exact information about fuel consumption. But at least the good old diesel engine is up and running again.

That such an expensive instrument (Veritas AIC-904) becomes clogged twice within a year despite regular filter changes is very disappointing! I’ll have to look for a replacement. Technology that does not work properly has no place on the boat!

Find out more about Eternaut’s fuel system here.

Maya Maya

When we left Subic Bay we hadn’t decided on a specific bay for the night. I wanted to make that decision depending on swell and waves. The swell was still rolling in from the South China Sea Despite the light winds the a moderate swell was still rolling in from the South China Sea. As the direction had a higher westerly than southerly component my choice fell on Nasugbu Bay, just south of Punta Fuego.

Nasugbu Bay is quite large and divided into several smaller bays by tiny headlands. We choose an anchorage at the north end. The Marina of the Maya Maya Resort was very close by. It looked pretty good from what we could observe out of the distance – contrary to the information floating around on the internet. As we wanted to spend only one night in the bay we didn’t bother launching the dinghy to investigate further.

Later in the evening some fishermen in small bancas cast their nets very close to us. We could have touched them from our boat. Did they just want to catch fish from under Eternaut or were there other intentions at play? In Malaysia many fishermen have a reputation for dropping their already broken nets around anchored yachts for the sole purpose of demanding money for damage. We didn’t want to find out if this bad habit had spread to the Philippines. So we stayed put and didn’t show up on the deck.

After about an hour the spook was over and we were able to head into the bunks. At the end it appears that the fishermen were only targeting the fish which had aggregated underneath our hull.

Day 2: Maya Maya to Puerto Galera

We weighed anchor early in the early morning and headed south along the coast. The wind picked up and came from an apparent angle of 50 degrees. Excellent conditions for hoisting the sails. Engine speed could be reduced to 900RPM and despite the current which was head on we made good progress. This went well until we reached Cape Santiago: here the wind shifted and after we set course directly towards Puerto Galera it was head on. The north setting current slowed us further to a mere 5 knots over ground. But we used energy from solar panels and alternator to run watermaker and do laundry. We managed three full loads of washing on this (short) sector. Surprisingly the laundry dried within an hour! These were the advantages of the weather conditions we encountered

En route we were overtaken by many freighters entering the Verde Passage. Only once we were not the slowest boat around: A large tugboat suffered even more from headwind and current.

Puerto Galera

The natural harbor of Puerto Galera has two entrances: the Northwest Channel (also called Manila Channel) and the North Channel. The Manila Channel was the shortest route for us. It was also the only possible way to enter: A power cable over the North Channel does not allow sailboats to take this route. When approaching the coastline one has to be aware that the current swirls around following it’s contours. This resulted in a strong side drift for our slow boat. Thankfully the chart plotter displays heading and track and thus it was easy to keep course.

Puerto Galera is a very popular and thus well charted. But this was also the first time that I tracked the position of our boat on the satellite images which I had downloaded before. It was perfect for me as I had trustworthy charts and additionally I could learn using OpenCPN. As I have never been here before I steered Eternaut very slowly into Muelle Bay giving the reefs a wide berth. Anyone approaching this part of Puerto Galera (where the berths of PGYC are loacated) in a straight line will end up on one of the reefs. Windows laptop and GPS combined with OpenCPN offer an excellent option for supplementing on-board navigation.

Puerto Galera Yacht Club

A few friends from Hong Kong had arrived with their boat a few days before us. There were big ‘wohoo’ calls when we approached the buoy assigned to us as we were becoming neighbors again. Like every Saturday evening the club was doing a BBQ night and we were in a rush to secure Eternaut before venturing off. Despite the rainy -low- season, the restaurant was crowded and much better attended than expected. Probably that was the reason why the food rations are very, very small. “Bonsai portion” as Olaf so aptly put it. However, plenty carbohydrates in liquid form made by San Miguel brewery were made available. We met a lot of nice people from all over the world.

Sabang

Our short tricycle trip to Sabang was disappointing: we had been here many times for diving between 2004-2018. Sabang always had an exotic, laid-back flair. Mainly because walking was the only option to pass through the super narrow streets. Some bars and restaurants were only accessible by walking along the narrow strip of beach. At high tide you risked getting your feet wet – but this was just part of the adventure, part of the fun being at Sabang beach. That no more! There is no longer a beach in the main bay of Sabang. Gone! Covered by concrete! Instead a road leads to hotels, restaurants and bars that were once sitting right on the waterfront. Sabang does not cater for the adventurous backpacker and diver anymore: Sabang started targeting wealthy Chinese and Korean tourists.

Shopping in PG

No, there is no SM Mall in Puerto Galera. But it is easy to buy everything for your daily needs. There are two well-stocked supermarkets, a market, a wet market and many small shops. Even Western delicacies are available and there are quite a few restaurants and bars. We loved the prices (US$): coconut for 40 cents, 1kg mangoes for $1,10. We realized that fruit and vegetable was much cheaper at the small stalls along the main road than at the market.

Additionally to the may shops selling Philippine food you can get very good Italian and Thai food here. Especially the Italian restaurant close to the public pier serves great pizzas.

Activities in PG

You can name Sabang and White Beach with Puerto Galera in one sentence when it comes to leisure activities: diving, beach, swimming, trip to the waterfalls, … there is a lot to do. Diving is surely the main reason why tourists come to this place.

We snorkeled a bit and I had a pleasant dive around Eternaut. But all overall we haven’t done much as we are in a bit of a ‘hurry’. There is no imminent typhoon threat at this moment. But as I write these lines another tropical storm is just brewing up to the South-East of the Philippines. This one is forecast to head north towards northern part of Luzon and should miss us. But I would like to head south as soon as possible to get out of the typhoon belt. So we are packing up again to leave this small paradise as soon as possible. But it is very likely that we will come back.

Sacrificial anodes

While diving around the boat I also discovered that the zinc anode from the propeller is missing – along with the bolts that should have held it. There is only one explanation for this: the shipyard in Hong Kong did not secure the bolts with threadlock! They really screwed this up! I have enough spare anodes, but no spare bolts. Because the bolts usually remain in the propeller – unless the shipyard is not doing the job properly! I have consulted a boat technician who works on boats in Puerto Galera. He said as our boat is made of steel and has a lot of anodes on hull and rudder the propeller is quite well protected by those already. It is therefore not too urgent to replace the propeller anode immediately.